Shop 'Til You Drop
by morethanmyself
Summary: A little bit of retail therapy never hurt anyone, right?  Alice Brandon is about to find out. AH. Warning: Dark humor, character death


A/N: This is the story I submitted for the Fandom For Sexual Assault Awareness. Thanks to everyone who donated!

I hope you enjoy this dark little story. Much love and thanks to Kas90 for beta'ing and 22Blue, Sammielynnsmom, and KrisScott for pre-reading.

There's an awesome banner that Becksishere did for me linked on my profile!

****WARNING**** Dark humor and character death, if that kind of thing bothers you, please skip this one!

**Shop 'Til You Drop**

It had all started out so innocently. When Alice Brandon was a little girl, her mother would give her a quarter to walk to the corner store to buy a treat whenever she had a bad day. But, as the years passed and Alice grew, so did the size of the treats she required to ease the sting of a miserable day. When Alice's best friend moved away when they were both ten, Alice convinced her parents a new bike would help. When she was fourteen and didn't make the cheerleading squad, she got a horse. At sixteen, after being dumped by her true love, her month long depression was only cured by the purchase of a new car. And at eighteen, when Alice didn't get into her first choice university, her parents bought her a condo close by her second choice school.

For all the days in between, for all the big defeats and little snags, Alice shopped. A pack of gum here, a new shirt there; when life got tough, the tough went shopping.

So, when the absolute worst day of her life finally crashed to its burning-rage, heart-wrenching, conclusion barely before lunchtime, it was no surprise that Alice took solace in shopping. It was the only constant in her life, the only thing that made sense and never disappointed. If you fell in love with a new dress or pair of shoes, it could be yours and yours alone for something as easily given away as cash. You didn't have to give it your heart in return for it. You didn't have to dedicate years of your life, your entire professional career to it. No whore was going to come in and steal it from you; it wasn't going to jump from closet to closet looking for warm bodies, to be worn behind your back. You weren't going to walk in one day and be informed that it no longer needed you in its employ.

"_You asked to see me, Mr. Dick?" Alice asked her boss, nervous about the point of the meeting. It was only ten o'clock in the morning in the middle of the week, surely this couldn't be bad news. She knew the company had been doing poorly as a direct result of the economy, but she had seniority and hoped that would work in her favor when they had announced impending lay-offs._

"_Yes, Ms. Brandon. Please, have a seat." The man's fleshy jowls jiggled as he pointed his sausage fingers to the chair in front of his desk. Once Alice was situated, he spoke again, "As you know, we've been forced to do some internal restructuring. Unfortunately, we're eliminating some positions to increase efficiency and reduce job redundancy."_

_Alice nodded, trying to calm the sinking feeling in her stomach. She'd worked here for years, interned in college and then come in full-time right after graduation, surely that meant something. But, as she found a few minutes later, in the world of the corporate bottom line, loyalty meant nothing._

_She had quickly cleaned out her desk, intent on leaving the building before the tears flowed. Her only thought was getting home, curling up in their bed, cocooned beneath the 1500 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, and waiting for Riley to get home. He may not have been the most attentive boyfriend, but he was perfect for a girl like Alice. It wouldn't occur to him to help her change into comfortable pajamas or bring her her favorite meal; no, he was a firm believer that something shiny and pretty was good for whatever ailed his girlfriend - a philosophy to which Alice ardently subscribed._

_Pulling into the underground garage of their building, she was surprised, though relieved, to see Riley's car was already in its spot. He would know just what she needed. The whole elevator ride up to their fourteenth floor apartment, Alice was calming herself with thoughts of what Riley might decide to surprise her with once he heard about her awful day._

_She was so lost in thought about her treat that she was almost past the dining room before she registered the moaning coming from their bedroom. Internally, she was hoping that Riley wasn't home sick. If he wasn't feeling well, he wouldn't be able to listen to her and then what was she going to do to get over her shitty day?_

_Instead of going straight back, she made a detour to the kitchen, rummaging through the cabinet until she came upon a box of cookies, hidden in the back. As she stood over the counter, eating her snack, she waited for the sounds to stop, telling her it was safe to check on him. Hopefully any mess would have been dealt with already._

_Carefully dusting the crumbs from her hands and off her chest, she walked towards the bedroom, pausing to stand in front of the door. She let her earlier anger and sadness come rushing back over her, wanting him to fully understand just how upsetting this whole thing was. Once she felt like she was in the correct mind-frame, she put her hand on the door knob and turned it quickly before rushing into the room._

"_Oh, Riley! You'll never guess what kind of day I've had! It was awful, I got fired and..." She was rushing everything out as quickly as she could, wanting to get to the part where she felt better as quickly as possible. Her focus on her turmoil caused her to miss the scene in front of her, the red haired woman spread out beneath the sheets and the man in which Alice was supposed to be seeking solace. But once she did see it, she couldn't stop herself from screeching, "Riley? What the fuck?"_

No, clothing was nothing like a job or a long-term, live-in boyfriend. It was loyal and always there for you; all you had to do was go in search of it and bring it home. Which was exactly what Alice was going to do, driving too quickly through downtown Seattle, on her way to her favorite mall, Bellevue Square, her posh home away from home. For all the soul-crushing disappointment she'd been subjected to today, she planned on erasing it with one trip of epic indulgence.

There was a small voice in the back of her head that was whispering that maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe without a job or even a guaranteed place to live anymore, she would be better off coming up with a back-up plan, using her credit cards and bank balance to get by until her life was settled again. But Alice ignored the nagging, do-gooder advice of her conscience in favor of the much louder shouts telling her she _deserved_ this. The universe owed her, and she fully planned on collecting.

The first hour was spent warming up both her limbs and her credit cards, buying some nice lingerie. Even if she didn't have anyone to show off to anymore, she could at least feel pretty. The first ding of the register started the blood pumping in her veins, inside the second dressing room, gazing in the mirror at the perfect bra, the tension in her shoulders started to ease, and by the third store, Alice was starting to feel the rush, even if it was still tempered with an ache in her chest. It was nothing that a little retail therapy couldn't fix.

The next hour was spent in vigorous shoe buying - pumps, heels, flats, and even a pair of sneakers. When she found the most gorgeous pair of spiked red heels, she laughed out loud, thinking of seeing her ex on the street and stabbing his eyes out with them. She could extract revenge and look fucking amazing doing it; it was win-win.

The third hour brought the real work, the kind of shopping that would get her the fix she needed, force her mind to let go of the worry and hurt, give her body something to replace the emptiness. Alice was ready to shop for clothes. For another three hours, store after store, piece by piece, bag by bag, she worked as hard as she ever had to find a sense of peace and grounding. Each hit was a rush to her endocrine system, flooding her body with the floating, rushing, soaring feeling of money well-spent.

By the time Alice had gone through the _entire _mall, she had left behind a trail of carnage-_-_ maxed out credit cards, a decimated bank account, and a wallet empty, save for a single hundred dollar bill staring mockingly up at her, begging to be traded for just one more piece of heaven. But she couldn't find it in her to care about any of the consequences. She had managed to successfully erase all thoughts of real life and it's real problems. Here, in this temple of mass-consumerism, Alice was a willing, joyful congregant. And if she only had one more chance to buy a glimpse at God, then she would spend it wisely.

Her left eye was twitching rhythmically, a physical manifestation of her inner tension. She was pacing madly through the mall, desperate for something, _anything_, to buy. She had exhausted all the clothing boutiques, the jewelry stores, and the lingerie shops. She had bought every pair of shoes she had wanted. She was at a loss for where to turn next when she came upon an unsuspecting teenager passing out samples for the Asian restaurant in the food court.

He smiled politely, if completely disinterestedly, at her. "Sample of sweet and sour chicken, ma'am?"

The madness in Alice's eyes would have caused a grown man to recoil, the boy just rolled his eyes. Alice looked him up and down, licking her lips.

"I'll give you five dollars," she said, her voice low and husky with want.

"Ma'am? It's free, I can't take any money."

"Ten dollars, then; I'll give you ten dollars for the sample," she argued, the lust in her voice being replaced with whiny need.

The boy graced her with a look of disdain only attainable by those who have lived between twelve and twenty years on this earth. "Free. It's free," he scoffed, pausing before belatedly adding, "ma'am."

"I will give you. One. Hundred. Dollars," Alice purred into his ear, tip-toeing her fingers up his chest.

The boy's eyes went wide, his pulse raced, and yes, his dick got hard as he gaped at her in shock. "Fffine...ma'am," he stuttered out in a whisper, looking around to make sure his supervisor wasn't watching. "One hundred dollars."

Quickly Alice whipped out the last bill in her wallet, the feeling of triumphant elation over taking her; this was the highest she'd ever felt while while shopping. Her blood hummed through her veins, and she smiled drunkenly, contentedly. The blissful _wholeness_ she was experiencing was surely divine.

After the surreptitious exchange of chicken for Benjamin, the teenager wandered away in a daze, shaking his head, completely confused by the tiny, insane woman he had just encountered. _Who pays for a free sample?_

Alice hoisted her bags up one final time, her whole body hidden behind the logoed plastic treasure chests. The rush of the final transaction settled deeply into her limbs, dopamine thrilling across the synapses of her brain, and suddenly, she couldn't stand still. In a moment of pure joy, her muscles primed and ready from the adrenaline pulsing through them, Alice jumped in place, fist pumping into the air, in the universal sign of victory.

It felt as if everything stood still in that moment, she felt as if she was actually hanging in the air, and when she came back down, it felt as if the fall went on forever. And then it felt as if something was actually wrong. _Wait, what? I should have felt the ground by now._ It was a split second reaction, a mere moment of realization that it wasn't just a feeling that she was free falling, but that she actually was. Until there was a the sickening reverberating, squelch of flesh and bone against concrete, the tumble-thuds of a weighted body flipping end over end down a flight of stairs. And then she felt nothing.

Alice had failed to account for her proximity to the stairs behind her and the off-kilter weight of her shopping bags. In the end, Alice literally shopped 'til she dropped.


End file.
